Trials
by Kate Bentley
Summary: Contains HBP spoilers. He is desperate to escape his actions and she is desperate to escape her memories. Together, they are improbable but not impossible. Can they change the course of events? DMHG.
1. Prologue: Condemned

Welcome to my second Harry Potter fan fiction. I have almost officially abandoned _Renegade_ for good, since it's horribly out of date and since I'm having a lot of trouble piecing the plot together. I mean, I've been trying to write chapter six for _almost two years_. So I'm taking the general idea from _Renegade_ and making a new story which I think will work out better.

Sorry this bit is so short, but it's the prologue and I promise I'll make up for it with my other chapters.

… … … … …

**Prologue:**

**Condemned**

… … … … …

"What am I going to do?"

The two figures crouched together in near-darkness seemed as like as night and day; and older man with black, longish hair, sallow skin and a distinctive nose, and a teenage boy with astonishingly pale skin and hair and a very pointed face. It was the boy who had spoken, his voice pitched high from nerves. His face was drawn and white with fear; even in the faint light, the dark-haired man could see him trembling. The man shifted a bit and peered at the boy through the shadows. When he spoke, his voice was lazy and filled with apathy.

"You are going to do exactly as we planned. You have no other options."

"But he'll kill me!" The boy's voice slipped a few pitches higher. "I didn't follow his orders! He's going to kill me, just like he said he would – and Mother, too – and Father –" His voice trailed off into a dry sob.

"Then go and beg his forgiveness," the dark-haired man snapped. It was fairly obvious that he had heard all of this before and was beginning to tire of the exchange.

"The Dark Lord doesn't forgive," the boy whispered.

"That is absolute nonsense, Draco," the man said tartly. "If that were the case, I would have been dead a long time ago." He shifted his weight again in an attempt to find a more comfortable position.

"Well, of course he's welling to forgive _you_," the boy, Draco, said. In the midst of the argument he seemed to have momentarily forgotten his fear. "You're his golden boy. He trusts you."

The man stared at him through the semidarkness for a few moments, considering this. The boy watched him warily, his grey eyes glinting in the faint light.

Finally the dark-haired man spoke. "Did your mother ever tell you of the visit that she and your aunt Bellatrix paid me last summer?" he asked. Draco shook his head mutely, his hair catching the light and shining dimly. The man continued, "Narcissa was extremely upset over the Dark Lord's plan for you, and she begged me to watch out for you, and to help you if it seemed you would fail in your task."

"Well, that explains why you kept bothering me all year long," Draco said, his voice tight with barely-controlled anger. "I take it you agreed?"

"More than that," the man said, his voice emotionless. "I made the Unbreakable Vow." He caught Draco's look of shock and added curtly, "I did it to help you, to keep you safe."

"And how could you have known that helping me meant I would fail in my assignment?" Draco replied bitterly. "How could you have known that your help would only get me killed? Fine help it was, Professor Snape." He spoke the name as if it were a curse.

A long silence stretched between them. Finally Draco broke the silence. His voice was trembling again. "How can you do it, Professor? How can you just let him kill me? How can you let him kill Mother and Father? Father is barely sane anymore – the Dark Lord won't hesitate to kill him in cold blood –"

"Silence," Snape hissed. "I can do it by remembering where my loyalties lie. You bear the Mark; your first loyalty is to the Lord Voldemort, above all others. Remember that."

Draco grew quiet once more, yet in the darkness the trembling of his body was almost audible. Several long minutes passed without either of them speaking. The only sound was Draco's uneven breathing.

Then Snape spoke. "When I made the Unbreakable Vow," he said, "I promised your mother that I would protect you from harm to the best of my ability." He paused, then said slowly, "The spell has not yet released me from that vow."

Draco stared in shock at Snape's shadowed face, his mouth agape in surprise. "Then you'll help me?" He whispered incredulously. "And Father and Mother too?"

Snape met his gaze for a fraction of a second before looking away. "I made the Vow to protect you," he said expressionlessly. "I may or may not be able to help your mother; I can do nothing for your father. The security which the Ministry has posted on Lucius is too tight for me to be able to reach him alone."

Draco reached forward and grasped the sleeve of Snape's black robes tightly. "Please," he said, his voice uneven. "Tell me what to do." His pleading grey eyes caught the dim light and flashed faintly.

"Get out of England," Snape directed. "Don't tell anyone where you'll be, not even your mother or father. And keep moving; don't stay in any one place for more than a few days. And for Merlin's sake, don't go anywhere that you might stand out."

"What about my parents?" Draco asked, releasing Snape's robes and rising to his feet.

"I'll do what I can for them," Snape said, rising as well and giving Draco a little push. "Now go, while you still have the chance. If I need to reach you I'll send your owl." Draco nodded, his eyes wide, and turned to leave. "Draco," Snape said, and the pale boy turned back. "Godspeed."

Draco nodded once more and stepped into the shadows. Within seconds his body was swallowed by the darkness. Snape waited several moments, listening, and finally heard a faint popping sound that meant that Draco had departed.

"Good luck," Snape muttered cynically under his breath. "You'll need it. And so will I."

… … … … …

Well? Let me know what you think! More is on the way, I promise!


	2. Escape from England

It has occurred to me that I probably ought to put a disclaimer in here. Here it is: We all know I'm not JK Rowling, and if you haven't figured out by now what "fan fiction" is, you shouldn't be on this website. Happy reading!

… … … … …

**Chapter 1:**

**Escape from England**

… … … … …

Hermione stepped outside and shut the cabin door behind her. She closed her eyes against the bright sunlight of late morning, breathing in the rich, earthy scent of the Canadian woods. As she did, she felt the tension in her shoulders ease slightly. It felt good, for just a little while, to not have to worry. She'd been doing that a lot recently.

And she had good reason to worry. Less than three weeks ago, the man who was possibly the world's most powerful wizard had been murdered in an attack upon Hermione's school, which had thrown her world into chaos. That Hermione's parents had chosen to leave England (in an attempt to escape the hostilities which were quickly spreading from the wizarding world into that of the Muggles) was doing nothing for her nerves. Though at least here – in the middle of nowhere, almost half a world away from England – she could relax a bit and try not to think about it.

That was the worst part. No matter how hard Hermione tried to forget everything, she simply couldn't stop thinking about it. She woke up every morning, wondering how many more people had been killed in England since she went to sleep; every night, she went to bed hoping against hope that Harry and Ron, the two people who were dearer to her than anything in the world, were still alive. During breakfast every day Hermione would scour the _Daily Prophet_ for any sign that things were improving in the struggle against the Dark Lord's forces.

And every day, they weren't.

Hermione walked across the cabin porch and sank onto the rocking chair there, taking her book out and opening it to the bookmarked page. She'd been doing a lot of reading recently, even more than usual; when she read, she didn't often think about anything else. She'd chosen, this summer, to read some of the Muggle authors whose work she hadn't touched before. John Irving's _A Prayer for Owen Meany_ was turning out to be more interesting than she'd thought, but every time Tabitha Wheelwright's death was mentioned, Hermione felt slightly sick to her stomach.

Hermione glanced down to the opened page, but, for perhaps the first time in her life, found herself uninterested in it. She didn't particularly want to read about dealing with death anymore. Instead she put her book away and stood up again, then took the stairs down to the road and started down it. Maybe what she needed was a walk, if she could manage to think about something other than current events. She could go down to the deer stand, where she knew she could be alone, and maybe she could try again to sort things out inside her head.

It was so sunny and bright, and the sky was such a vivid shade of blue, that Hermione almost felt guilty about being so despondent. She walked along with her head down so she didn't have to pay as much attention to her surroundings. The sun was behind her, throwing her shadow out a short distance in front of her feet. She watched the stones of the gravel road go by and tried not to think of anything else for a while.

When the road curved around to the left, Hermione turned off into the woods, following a footpath through the trees. As she plodded along, she found herself humming a tune by the Weird Sisters, her favorite wizarding band. It had a slightly depressing melody, and usually wasn't one of Hermione's favorite songs. Hermione shook her head and looked up at the sky, visible between the fluttering leaves.

_Will it ever end?_

… … … … …

Draco took a deep breath to recover from the strange feeling of being pushed through a straw, and opened his eyes. He was slightly surprised to discover that it was light where he had emerged. Not only that, it seemed to be well into the morning. _Where am I?_ He wondered. He hadn't been as specific as he ought to have been when he Apparated – focusing on ending up somewhere in the middle of nowhere, maybe in Canada or the United States – and as such didn't know where he'd appeared.

He took a good look around, stretching a bit as he did so. He was stiff from having crouched for so long in the darkness with Snape, hiding in the safe spot and waiting to be summoned to the Dark Lord's side. Here, at least, he had some room to move around – he'd Apparated into a clearing in the middle of the forest. Draco shuddered to himself, amazed at his good luck – twenty feet in any direction and he could have ended up stuck inside a tree.

He shook his head and looked around again. He felt entirely lost, not even sure which way was north. With any luck, he'd be able to Apparate back to civilization – but until he got word from Snape that it was safe to return to England, he'd have to stay out here. The middle of nowhere was as good as anyplace else when trying to be inconspicuous, and at least he didn't have to worry too much about the area's inhabitants; maybe just cabin-owners or park rangers, depending on where he was.

This last problem seemed to be the most pressing. Without the knowledge of his location, he had no hope of finding anything to eat, though he supposed he could pull ideas out of the sorts of books he used to read as a child and eat berries and roots from the forest if he had to. If he could find such things, and if they weren't poisonous. Draco frowned to himself. He was starting to think he'd gotten himself into greater trouble than he'd previously imagined.

For lack of any better plans, Draco headed into the forest, making his way between the trees and around bushes. Any direction was better than none at all…

An indeterminate amount of time later, Draco was thoroughly sick of walking through the woods. Already his school robes and uniform were snagged and torn; he'd turned his ankle a few times and it was beginning to throb. Draco stopped, leaning against the rough bark of a tree, and started to rethink his plans. Obviously, randomly striking out through the woods had been a bad idea; he now had even less of an idea of his location than he had had before, yet he had no idea how to get where he was trying to go or what he'd find when he arrived. Draco buried his hands in his face and thought.

The wind picked up a bit, rustling the leaves above him. It was a soothing sound, and for a few seconds Draco interrupted his inner debate to listen to it. The forest was really much quieter than any place he had ever been before; at Hogwarts, and even at the Malfoy estates, there always seemed to be some background noise cluttering up his ears.

The silence was short-lived, however; a few seconds after Draco started concentrating on the quietness, a soft drone entered on the edge of his consciousness and picked up volume as through whatever was causing it was coming steadily closer. Draco peered through the trees to his left and saw, in the far distance, a tiny patch of white moving through the trees. Draco watched it go by, trying to figure out what in Merlin's name it was, until it was out of sight and the noise had died away. It had sounded something like those funny Muggle contraptions – motters, or motors, or whatever they were called – the things that Muggles put inside their cars to make them go without magic.

Draco shook his head and looked around, mentally going back to the question of which direction he should go. Then he stopped and looked back in the direction which the Muggle vehicle had passed. Muggle cars had to drive on roads, just like wizarding cars and carriages did… It was a safe guess that the car had been driving on one such, and that if Draco were to find it and follow it, he'd be able to find someplace he could find food or shelter. Thinking that at least this was a reasonably decent plan, Draco turned and started toward the road.

As he walked, Draco noticed another sort of clearing off to one side, and some sort of structure built on the edge of it. He paused, glancing toward the road, then decided that he wasn't on any sort of schedule and he could afford to satiate his curiosity. Keeping the direction of the road in mind, he started for the clearing.

The structure he'd seen was one of those things used for hunting deer – a deer stand, or something – he wasn't at all familiar with the pastime of hunting. It was a tall platform, perhaps ten or twenty feet off the ground, with a roof to keep the sun and rain off of whoever was up there. Draco didn't have any idea whom the structure might belong to, but it didn't seem to get much use, and it would be nice to have some place to come back to and spend the night. He set his foot on the first rung of the ladder and pulled himself up to the platform.

Well, aside from the roof, it wasn't much…but it did have a nice view.

Draco had just settled himself on the platform to rest for a few minutes when he heard a sound in the woods nearby, like something cracking – or Apparating. He jerked himself to his feet and whipped out his wand before he even knew what was going on. He listened. Yes, there was definitely something – or someone – moving out there. Trying desperately to keep himself from panicking, Draco managed to grab at the roof and swing himself up so that he was perched on the flat surface. Draco flattened himself down so he wouldn't be seen, keeping his eyes open, and his wand at the ready. _Please, don't let it be Him. He can't have found me already…can he?_

… … … … …

Hermione turned to look as the car went by, sending up a cloud of dust as it passed. She coughed a bit as she inhaled a bit of the dust, and waved her hand to clear the air in front of her face. She didn't recognize the car, but it might have been the family with the cabin down the road. They owned most of the surrounding area, including the cabin the Grangers were staying in, and had rented the cabin to them for the summer. Hermione shrugged and headed farther into the woods, keeping her eyes on the ground to ensure that she wouldn't trip over anything.

She focused on the damp brown leaves under her feet, trying to get her mind off the subject of cars now - especially that car that Harry and Ron had flown to Hogwarts in their second year. Had they really only been twelve years old then? Surely it couldn't have been that long ago. That was even before…before…

Hermione looked up resolutely and saw the sturdy frame of the deer stand through the trees ahead. She quickened her pace, wanting to reach her destination now as soon as possible, and kept her eyes fixed on the structure ahead. However, there had been a reason she was watching the ground – as she realized when she ungracefully tripped over a branch lying across the path, landing face first in the decaying leaves and breaking the branch in the process with a resounding _crack_.

Slowly Hermione picked herself up, brushing bits of leaves off her clothes and picking them out of her hair. She rubbed her ankle, which was a little sore from its contact with the branch, and started off down the path again, keeping her eyes on her feet until she was safely at the foot of the deer stand. She grabbed a hold of the ladder and climbed up to the platform.

Once up, she turned and sat on the edge of the platform with her feet dangling above the ground, staring out at the trees. That was the nice thing about Canada…It was so empty of people. Hermione sighed and watched the leaves catching the sunlight as they shifted in the breeze, and allowed her thoughts to drift.

There was a soft _thump_ behind her. In her haze, Hermione barely noticed it, and didn't bother to turn and see what had caused it. She found out anyway a few seconds later, when she heard, just behind her, a cold voice say:

"If you move, I'll kill you."


	3. I'm Not Safe

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed the first two parts so far (Lucifer's Garden, prin69, fantasy, and RussianWolf7) – and ten points for Mystical Witch, who was kind enough to submit an idea for a later chapter. Now, read on:

… … … … …

**Chapter Two:**

**I'm Not Safe**

… … … … …

"If you move, I'll kill you."

Hermione whipped around and nearly fell off the platform in shock. She found herself staring at the dark sculpted wood of Draco Malfoy's wand – which was pointed directly at her face.

"You!" she gasped, hauling herself to her feet. Malfoy raised his wand as she stood, keeping it aimed at her head. Hermione found that she couldn't do any more than stare at him in shock. What in the name of _Merlin_ was Malfoy doing here? She hadn't seen him since that night at school when… Suddenly everything seemed to flood back into her mind – Dumbledore and Snape…all those people dying at Voldemort's hands…And here was Malfoy, in the thick of it all.

"You bloody _bastard_!" she shrieked. She lunged for him, not even considering the consequences, only focusing on the primal urge to get her hands around his scrawny pale neck and squeeze as tightly as possible.

Malfoy took a few steps back and brandished his wand a few inches away from her nose, forcing her to fall back. "Don't you dare, Granger," he growled. "I'll kill you. I will."

She glared at him from across the platform, held at bay by his wand, yet too overcome by blinding fury to let that stop her for long. She had been looking for a way to express her emotions for the past three weeks, and the present opportunity was too good to pass up. Considering that he was armed, and Hermione was not, it probably would have been a good idea if she had held her tongue; but she couldn't help herself. "You won't kill me, Malfoy," she spat. "You haven't got the guts. You couldn't kill Professor Dumbledore and you won't kill me -"

"Shut up, Granger!"

"- because you're nothing but a scummy coward -" She took a daring step forward, her entire body shaking with an overwhelming rage.

"I said, _shut up_!" His hand trembling with a fury that matched hers, he adjusted his wand for a better aim.

"- and a bloody Death Eater!"

"_Stupefy_!"

Hermione barely had time to blink in surprise before the spell hit her and threw her backwards. There was a flash of red, and she was falling, and then everything faded to darkness.

… … … … …

Draco watched in horror as Granger's limp form disappeared over the edge of the platform. There was a dull _thump_ as she hit the ground. He dashed to the edge, hurriedly stowing his wand away, and looked down at her, sprawled unconscious at the foot of the structure. She'd fallen a good ten or fifteen feet – she'd been standing so close to the edge, he hadn't thought – oh, Merlin, that had been stupid of him. This was an unexpected twist – the events of the last three minutes seemed to him as much of an upheaval as the events of the last three weeks. He hadn't anticipated that by escaping England he would be running straight into the arms of his enemies – he certainly hadn't expected to find Granger, much less Stupefy her.

Now there was another problem weighing on him – he was willing to bet that the chance that Granger was all alone here, in hiding in the middle of Draco didn't-know-where, was about one in several million. Draco knew for a fact that he wouldn't have to worry about coming up against Dumbledore, but there were several of Dumbledore's supporters that Draco was just as eager to keep away from. Which meant that wherever he was, he had to get somewhere else, and fast.

There was also the problem of what to do with Granger now that she was just lying there. He didn't know how to tell if she'd broken something; none of her limbs were lying at particularly odd angles, but that might not mean anything. Draco stepped away from the edge and rubbed his forehead with one hand, wondering what to do. If someone like Potter or McGonagall showed up and found her lying there, he or she would know for certain that one of the Dark Lord's followers was in the area, and Potter's friends were certainly capable of tracking Draco down and killing him.

Yet he couldn't very well _help_ Granger. That was a very easy way to get another black mark against him in Lord Voldemort's book. Besides, once she woke up, she'd go running off to tell precious Potter that she'd seen him, and Draco would be just as dead as if he had left her alone.

Logically, that meant that he simply couldn't leave her there to be found by her allies.

Draco's grey eyes lit up at his next thought. Since that was the case, then what he _could_ do was this: he would take her back to England, where he could be certain that he hadn't injured her unduly, and then he could fix her up and present her to the Dark Lord as a gift. Maybe Lord Voldemort would overlook his current dissatisfaction with Draco if Draco brought him the key to Voldemort's victory over Harry Potter – because what wouldn't Potter do to keep one of his best friends safe from harm?

It was brilliant.

Smirking triumphantly to himself, he went over to the ladder and let himself down onto the ground again, wondering what on Earth he was going to do about Granger. He was no MediWitch – it might be dangerous to move her, and the Dark Lord might be more displeased with him if he turned up with a dead Granger than if he turned up without her at all. He turned around to see how injured she was – and she wasn't there any more.

Draco stared down at the spot where he _knew_ she'd been lying just a few moments ago, blinking stupidly. He glanced around the clearing, but he was sure he hadn't mistaken the spot where she'd been. She simply wasn't there.

There was a noise off to the right, and he looked up sharply to see a little blot of bright green moving through the trees a good distance away – Granger's shirt. He could make her out between the trees and branches, hurrying through the woods with one hand clutched to her head, reaching out to some of the trees for support. His heart sank. There was a good chance he could catch up to her, but he didn't know how far it was to wherever Granger was staying, and if he followed her he might end up face to face with McGonagall.

He sighed. What the hell. He had nothing to lose but his life, and there was a pretty strong possibility that he'd lose that anyway.

He took after her, running as fast as he could though the woods, dodging around trees, pausing only once to yank his school robes free when the fabric caught on the branches of what might have been a gooseberry bramble. She knew he was behind her; he'd seen her turn her head as she ran. He pulled out his wand, hoping that he might have a clear shot with another stunning spell. It was no use; the trees kept getting in the way, and once Granger reached the road she simply plunged into the trees on the other side, further obstructing his view.

Draco arrived at the road and paused, wondering what to do. The path he and Granger had been following didn't continue on the other side of the road, and now Granger was simply pushing her way around trees and brambles. He could follow her, but he didn't know where she was going or how on Earth he was going to get there with his clothes still intact; yet his only chance, perhaps, of not getting killed was dashing through the forest away from him. He sighed again and began gingerly picking his way through the trees.

… … … … …

Hermione rounded a clump of bushes and threw a look back over her shoulder. Malfoy had reached the road – he'd paused for a second, but it looked as if he was still following her. Hermione's shoulders sagged briefly. She was panting heavily, her head was pounding painfully, and she had numerous stinging bruises on her legs where twigs had whipped her as she passed. The last thing she wanted to do was run the rest of the way home; but if she could get back to the cabin and lock the door before Malfoy hit her with another spell, she'd be relatively safe.

She had been a fool to leave her wand in England. Ron had warned her, before she left, that things weren't safe _anywhere_ – but she'd thought, what harm could she come to in the middle of nowhere in Canada? And besides, she hadn't completed her seventh year of school; she wasn't allowed to do wizardry during the summer. In her subconscious, she knew that, given the chance, Voldemort would probably still kill her whether she was underage or not, but she had still left her wand behind when she'd left England. She hadn't thought she'd need it.

Who could have known she'd be hunted through the forest by Malfoy, of all people?

Hermione glanced behind her again. Malfoy was still there, though he was following her at a slightly slower pace. That was good – in thirty seconds, she'd be back in her cabin and Malfoy would be locked out.

She dashed out of the trees, ran across the driveway and hurried up the steps to the front door. She spent a few frantic seconds pulling at the doorknob, which had a habit sometimes of sticking; then suddenly found herself in the entranceway and slammed the door shut behind her. Breathing heavily, Hermione turned the lock on the door and went to the window to look out.

Malfoy hadn't left the cover of the woods; he leaned against a tree, looking a bit out of breath. They stared at each other across the driveway for a few moments; then Malfoy turned and made his way slowly back through the trees.

Hermione reached for the blinds and quickly closed them, plunging the cabin's main room into gloomy half-darkness. She heard footsteps on the stairs, and turned to see her mother peering at her from the foot of the staircase.

"Hermione?" Mrs. Granger asked. "What's going on?"

"I need to write a letter to Harry," Hermione said, ignoring the question. She started for the stairs, and pushed past her mother. "And I'll need to borrow a few pounds so I can have it sent first class. It's urgent." She hurried up the stairs and paused at the top. "And if you could call and see about getting the first available flight back to England, I'd really appreciate it."

"Hermione!" Mrs. Granger exclaimed, frowning up at her daughter. She could tell by Hermione's manner that something wasn't right. "Tell me what on Earth is going on. What's all this about?"

"Please, Mum," Hermione said, giving her mother a pleading look. "I promise I'll explain, but _we have to get back to London_." She paused, and added in a tremulous voice,

"I'm not safe here anymore."

… … … … …

Sorry if it's a bit shorter than usual. I'll try my best to throw some longer chapters in later to make up for it.

In the meantime, I'd really appreciate it if all you lovely people would send me some constructive criticism. Have you got any ideas you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them!


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